Snow Sports: Kelley’s personal weekday forecast constant

Many TV weathermen and women talk about snow in the forecast as a problem.

Not Tim Kelley.

They don’t call the veteran NECN meteorologist the “skiing weatherman” for nothing.

Kelley is one of the few TV weather people in New England whom ski area operators are not wary of (or who don’t actively dislike), and one of the few you can depend on, in my opinion.

A Cape Cod native who lives in Scituate, Kelley, 49, can be found during the week shredding at Stowe, where he has a condo. Kelley is also a big surfing dude.

Check out his private Web site: http://surfskiweather.us/. Kelley also makes frequent appearances as the house weatherman on the site of the awesomely hip ski community Ski The East, http://www.skitheeast.net/weather.

Kelley, a graduate of Vermont’s Lyndon State College, joined NECN at the Needham cable station’s inception in 1992. Now he pretty much works 17-hour weekend shifts, sleeps them off Mondays and then heads north to Stowe.

OK, so when I got Kelley on the phone the other day after meeting him at the Boston Snow Sports Expo last month, I had one question. I’ll give you the sanitized version: “Where’s the (expletive deleted) snow?”

Kelley laughed grimly. It’s not as if he doesn’t hear this kind of stuff all the time from his skiing and riding friends.

He pointed out that in Worcester, for example, November had three significant snowfalls, including one of seven inches-plus. Also, November was colder than average this year.

So, despite the wretchedly warm weather we’ve been suffering through for the last few weeks, Kelley, like many other New England meteorologists, is sticking to a long-range prediction of a significantly more snowy winter around here than last year. Of course, that’s not hard, considering that last year was the worst on record for our winter sports.

“It’s going to take a while,” but temperatures will drop and snow will come, Kelley said, explaining that the cold air mass in the center of the country will eventually push toward the coasts. “I’m a glass half full kind of guy.”

Kelley says he’ll ski in any conditions (as will I, I might add). Real ski fanatics don’t wait for perfect snow. They just go out and do it.

To naysayers who complain that last year really stunk, Kelley pointed out that Stowe had 80 inches of snow on the ground in April. And the classic northern Vermont ski area — considered by many to have the finest terrain in the East — had great powder skiing on April 5.

“Every winter is different. The whole climate-change clamor has made people more sensitive,” Kelley said. “You just have to put up with it. I don’t get upset with the weather.”

Amen to that. Now let’s get that message out to the other weathermen and women.

Even Kelley admits, though, that his enthusiasm for skiing occasionally goes a bit far, as in late April when he rolls footage of spring ski and music festivals in northern outposts such as Sugarloaf, Maine, instead of pictures of the Boston Marathon. His bosses sometimes bring this kind of stuff to his attention.

“They think I’m a little bit obsessed with it,” Kelley said.

Speaking of cold weather, it’s back.

Central Massachusetts’ two ski areas, Wachusett and Ski Ward, have fired up the snows guns again and expect to stay open for the season.

I hit Wachusett on Sunday. The ski area was recovering from a slew of warm and rainy days, but still had three of its mainstay trails, Challenger, Ralph’s Run and Indian Summer, open top to bottom, along with two high-speed quads running.

The snow was not plentiful, but it was soft and there was enough of it to make some good turns.

That experience proved what I always say: that any skiing is better than no skiing.

The Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism expects to launch its “Ski Local” promotional website and online planner tomorrow.

Massvacation.com/skilocal has information on 12 ski areas in the state (including Wachusett and Ward), skiing conditions, and social media updates, when available. MOTT also plans to launch an Instagram contest in which participants will enter to win ski passes to Massachusetts areas.